-
Asked by waveicle to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: Space.
-
Adam Tuff answered on 20 Mar 2011:
We don’t know! This is the Black hole information paradox in that Hawking radiation shouldn’t be dependant on the material entering the black hole, but all of the material entering the black hole should have some sort of quantum mechanical wavefunction to it. You should be able to tell what any wavefunction was doing in the past, as you should be able to tell what any wavefunction will do in the future – obviously not the case if Hawking radiation is indeed independent of material. If you can find a way to probe a black hole, there’s a nobel prize in it for you.
-
-
Suzie Sheehy answered on 20 Mar 2011:
Hi waveicle – thanks for another great and thought-provoking question. This is what is called the black hole information paradox and it is, unfortunately still a paradox! I don’t know the answer… it does seem strange though that information could just pop out of existence and it does seem to violate other laws in physics.
Maybe the information goes into some other dimension? Or to some other parallel universe? Or maybe our other theories are wrong!?
At this stage, your guess is as good as mine! Study physics and maybe one day you can find out to answer – make sure you tell me if you do!!
-
Geoff McBride answered on 20 Mar 2011:
This is a heavy duty question. There is much debate over the destruction of information by black holes. Main stream thinking says it is destroyed. One group of scientists theorise that the 2D universe is a projection on to holographic space. I’ve not quite got my head around this. But since it is a projection the information is not destroyed. I actually got lost driving my car thinking about this. My wife and children we’ren’t impressed. I even ignored the satnav.
-
Sheila Kanani answered on 20 Mar 2011:
Great question waveicle!
Well this is another one that no one really knows about. Hawking says that the information cant be revealed in the process so we cant measure it to find out. But there are other ideas too. Another idea is that black hole evaporation ends with a massive remnant, and that all the information about how the black hole was formed is somehow stuffed into this! But like I said, no one really knows! -
Robert Simpson answered on 21 Mar 2011:
I don’t think anything happens to it – I think it may just be gone.
Comments
waveicle commented on :
Can we not study the information in the black hole by entangling pure state, and one part of the entangled system is thrown into the black hole while keeping the other part outside?
Suzie commented on :
if we had a black hole for long enough in the lab then yes, but otherwise we’d have to travel to the centre of our milky way to ‘throw in’ that one!
Creating one in the lab & then throwing in one half of an entangled system sounds pretty tough to me, but I’m not saying impossible because I haven’t done the maths to see if it would be!